Feedback on a banner design

[DemiGR]

I was hoping to get some feedback from you guys regarding some banner redesign we are working on for our website.  We are currently using the blue one, but we werent happy with the logo we had of the hat and hands shaking.  So once we started working on a new logo, that logo doesnt match at all with the current design so we were messing around with the banner and came up with these ideas.

Id appreciate some feedback good or bad

edit: sorry guess [img] doesnt work in here

Current Banner

http://i403.photobucket.com/albums/pp120/jimrawr/banner_zpse92b853f.jpg

New 1

http://i403.photobucket.com/albums/pp120/jimrawr/21-03-banner_zpsfc224501.jpg

New 2

http://i403.photobucket.com/albums/pp120/jimrawr/19-03-banner_zps17c3f2f1.jpg

New 3

http://i403.photobucket.com/albums/pp120/jimrawr/20-03-banner_zps966bb780.jpg

[BlueprintMarketing]

I apologize for not seeing this somehow it passed right over me.
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http://wpengine.com/fast-page-loads/
https://www.zippykid.com/benefits/speed-fast-wordpress-host/
https://www.zippykid.com/benefits/
http://websynthesis.com/features/
https://page.ly/features/

For instance I'm currently writing a Moz blog post on the subject so I can't give out too much information or I'd be self plagiarizing I know it's unfortunate. I best advice is go to their websites I think everyone of them has a done a wonderful job of informing people of their benefits. I also should tell you that I have an account with every company am about to mention. You cannot go wrong with any of them. Pay attention to the band with and page views you are allotted and know that some of them are maybe a better value than others. Regardless you can rest assured that all of them will do a great job.
 My other piece of advice is contact them and ask them why they're the one you should pick. Take a lot into account as to how much time they take to get back to you I will mention this is public knowledge automatic has invested in both WP engine and Zippykid. However web synthesis is still an excellent choice as is Page.ly
 All of them run on top-quality hardware and are built only to host WordPress because WordPress has a database unlike a pure HTML website the time it takes to access the database with caching on the server where somebody has spent a great deal of money to have that website cache so in the event of a person going to another page you have removed what made WordPress slower in the 1st place many of them have content delivery networks built-in the ones that have CDN's built-in also have a lot more going on on the server side meaning you have a faster host the more solid website.

all of them use Nginx instead of Apache you can run a website with 10,000 visitors on  Nginx with merely 2 MB of RAM Apache uses far more than that for 5 people.
I hope you can do some more research I recommend using this as a research tool as well because I cannot use my own content look at the hosting section on my website there's an FAQ at the top as well just click the FAQ you may also private message me of course if you have any particular questions that I cannot answer here I'm sorry for that.
http://www.blueprintmarketing.com/hosting/

[RepLoc_Tim]

I agree with Thomas on the hosting.  I haven't personally used Zippy Kid, Pagely, or Presslabs, but I do use WPEngine and Synthesis.  I am in the process of migrating 2 more sites over to Synthesis this week.

There are lots of great benefits to host your wordpress on these servers.  They are built very specifically for Wordpress and have gotten rid of the bloat of a traditional server.  Your sites will load faster, even without a CDN.  They keep everything backed up and secure too.  Peace of mind is what I always look for in a web host and that is what you get when you host with a team that loves wordpress and only do wordpress.

There is not enough room to cover all the benefits and details.  Just look them up and be sure to read the FAQs on each.

[DemiGR]

Thomas thanks again for the information.  I took a look at those sites and it looks like webdevstudios does build nice wordpress sites.

Why do you recommend those hosts rather than anyold host? I dont get the reason.  We currently use godaddy and are satisfied with their service.  Is there some benefit of using a WP host that I am not aware of?

[BlueprintMarketing]

well I can give you some very professional companies to hire.

http://webdevstudios.com/

Is an amazing studio they do a lot of incredible work and they start

Reasonable  price

happycog.com

A another way is to use 99 designs and build it on a quality framework like Genesis

have looked at WP engines developers link and you will see some very good developers list.

I noticed you are running WordPress with Apache as a server you might want to look into

WP engine, Zippy kid, web synthesis, Pagely & Presslabs they are all dedicated to WordPress and will make an excellent host for your website.

The way I would do it is make the site from Photoshop and have a developer build it.

Either that or find a theme that you like and have it constructed on a high quality framework if you're using WordPress if you're not you can still have it turned into HTML or most other platforms.

However if you want guaranteed quality Webdevstudios did LEXISNEXIS.com & happy cog does Fortune 100 websites mostly. I didn't want to give you the name of the studio that I thought would let you down so I gave you once I know will do well. Web dev studios is much more reasonable, and I would encourage you to give them a try. I currently have a time set up to meet with them and plan on having my site rebuilt by them.

I would also grab the .co of your domain and believe if you could help your rankings.

I hope I have been of help,

Thomas

[DemiGR]

Thanks Thomas and please, we welcome real feedback and that means negative as well  The funny part is the guy who designed this for us is a regular on 99designs, but yeah it may be better to see lots of options rather than a few.

Maybe its time for me to think more about a complete redesign (we just built our current page one month ago for $1,250).  We aren't really happy with the way it came out we want a more professional feel.  Its difficult figuring out who to hire for something like this.  Guess thats going a bit off topic for now.

[DemiGR]

Thanks for the feedback Tim.  We would love to try to split test though we don't currently have a webmaster that can help us with that and our budget is pretty low (new company, only a couple months old).

[BlueprintMarketing]

PS. You might get a lot of more free advice if you go on Twitter and then put #WebDesign then simply ask people for their opinion..

[BlueprintMarketing]

I too am not a web designer and if I want to get the same disclaimer

However

I don't understand why you guys are trying to force the social media into the web banner I think that makes it look a lot worse. If anything the social media should be customized to blend with the banner if you're going to put it into the banner or it should be a different part of the site as it is in right below or above.

I would go to use only number three honestly I wouldn't use any of the other ones in my humble opinion.

I agree with the other gentleman I don't like the other ones 12 are really not very well put together in my opinion compared to number three. However I think you should plan the social media world lose it on the banner and just an idea and this is not criticism at all as I think you did a great job with everything maybe you should have a professional have a crack at it it's very inexpensive services below and this is just if you want to go that way not that your work is bad at all.

If you want to know a very inexpensive way to get all these things blended and have multiple different designers take a crack at it 99designs.com and designcrowd.com Will allow you to have professionals make a new banner for you for approximately anywhere from hundred dollars and up. You get more than 30 designs to look at and you don't have to pay if you don't like it.

Please don't think of that I think any of the designs are bad in any way shape or form. However if you want something that looks extremely professional this is my best advice. So it blend and social media. I hope I've been of help to you

sincerely,

Thomas

Second disclaimer. I have dictated all of this on mobile phone so if there's any spelling or glaring grammar errors or words that don't belong where they do please excuse them.

[RepLoc_Tim]

Disclaimer: I am not a graphic artist/ designer.

New 1 and 2 seem unremarkable and kind of disappear on the page.  New 3 stands out a bit more.  I guess I am not clear on what your new logo is.  In # 1&2, it seems to be the USA map with arrows and SDR.  On 3, there isn't one, unless the grad cap icon is it.  #1 actually has both the map and the grad cap.

On 1& 2 you use a sans-serif font on the SDR, but a serif font on the words spelled out.  Was that intentional?  Nothing wrong with using 2 different fonts in a logo, but going from sans-serif to serif when switching from the initials to the full words seems a bit strange.  I personally prefer sans-serif fonts online, but I get the connection between serif and academia for a student targeted ad.

Have you tried swapping the logo with the words spelled out in options #1 and #2.  Put the words spelled out on the left and the logo in the center?  Even if this looked better, I will still try to get some attention-getting color in there like you did in your current one and #3.

The best way to decide is to run a split test and see what behaviors occur with each one.  My guess is that #3 would outperform #1 and 2 simply because it stands out more.  This is a perfect thing to split test and keep tweaking until you get the best results.